Some call it "Changes" I call it "Exchanges"

I don’t like the word “middle-aged” perhaps because it makes me think of the word “medieval” or the “middle-ages” a time riddled with violence, hysteria and ignorance. So I’m trying to switch my mindset and think of the term “middle-aged” as a time of changes or in my case exchanges!

If I have to say one thing about being my current age, fortyyyyyy-eight, there I said it and without a drop of alcohol, is that my 40s have been a time where I noticed I have finally shed (not pounds however!) my awkward timidity. I noticed that as the years add on, I add on another layer of confidence and “je ne sais quoi” that I never had in my 20s or 30s. I have just lately through this blog been able to approach people that otherwise I never would dream of doing and overall I feel more self assured. So, the positive about being “middle-aged” is the wonderful personal exchanges with different people it has allotted me. But it’s certainly not the only kind of exchanges I’ve been recently experiencing.

When I was younger I dreaded having to return an item to a store for whatever reason, I was that bashful and self-conscious, never wanting to face the rejection of the retail establishment. Fast forward to now and there doesn’t appear to be an exchange or return that could possibly intimidate me. Just the other day, I had to purchase some multivitamins for my mother. She requires something not horse pill sized and therefore easy to swallow so I perused a plethora of choices. Did you know there is a multivitamin for every possible body type? For example, for active lifestyles (for me that would have to include just getting out of bed?), for the senior set or silver-aged, and then there are the ones for my group, the menopausalset actually these multivitamins come already packaged with a gun, which is very handy for those super irritable days! And then I saw it, a multivitamin in a liquid format, perfect! My mother will enjoy not having to break her pill in half to make swallowing possible. I grabbed it off the shelf, double checked with the pharmacist that it would be safe for my mother to take along with all her other meds, and made the purchase.

The next day, I brought it over to my mother’s and was excited to show her how she only needs to take a teaspoon of this pomegranate infused multivitamin when on the box I noticed that the expiry date had expired. I was furious, how could a pharmacy keep things shelved months after the expiry date? I rushed back to that same pharmacist, who walked me back to the spot where I found the liquid multivitamin and pulled another one off the shelf, this time the expiry date indicated September 2010. I told her that wasn’t good enough as September was around the corner; she in turn told me nonchalantly that it would still be effective. I looked at her stunned, and said that “any medication or in this case even vitamins lose their potency after a certain extended time, as a pharmacist you should know this”! I spoke in my authoritative MD voice (and I’m no MD) from deep within that in my formative years I never had! I politely requested my money back and in this case, the apologetic look on the pharmacist face along with my pulsating sense of self was an enduring enough priceless exchange for me!